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Tuesday, 20 August 2013

The UK has finally seen some sun this summer, so much so the country is
experiencing a very rare and unusually long heat wave. Anyone wanting to play
on their PS3 or 360 can forget it in this weather, unless that is you want to
see the systems overheat and melt before your very eyes. But the same can be
said of PC’s as well, whether you use them for playing games, surfing the web
or other more demanding work, the weather has made computers all over the
country break into a sweat and slow, not to mention cause their users to
perspire due to the heat emitted from them.

Unfortunately for laptop/notebook owners, the heat is somewhat of a more
dangerous and pressing issue for their systems as they don’t contain anything
like the exuberant and luxury driven cooling systems found in a typical PC. The
kind of heat the UK has experienced over the past month has perished most
peoples will to hit the on button, yet the UK will continue to experience the
high temperatures and uncomfortable humidity for some time, making notebook
owners like myself having to limit the use of the computer in case of
overheating. I personally haven’t had any issues, but I have been keeping a
close eye on the systems temperature gauge, and made a conscious decision not
to do anything too demanding on the system, especially during the day.

So since the start of the summer I have been on a quest to find the best
laptop cooler for my laptop, I didn’t expect to buy more than one, but I am now
currently on my third, so I have decided to write a review of each one and
explain along the way why I have gone through several in a short amount of time.
But before I continue I will set out the temperature benchmarks of my computer
to show you the reader, just how much of a difference these 3 coolers have made
if any.

During winter and spring, before I decided to get a cooler, I would regularly
check the temperature of my CPU using my computers monitoring software, what I
found was it ran at about 35 degrees while idle, and around 38 running
demanding programs such as a video editor or a game. During this summers heat
wave (again prior to getting a cooler) my CPU temperature was around 40 degrees
while idle, but 45/46 running games or my video editor.

The first Cooler I Bought

Belkin Cooler Stand

This was the cheapest of the three cooling stands that I bought,
weighing in at around £14, and designed for 15” laptops, it also just happened
to be the most powerful of the three coolers that I bought. With a convex
design that allows it to support a laptop from each corner while keeping the
space directly underneath empty, and with the fan centred in the middle of the
cooler, it allows the cool air to flow underneath and exit either side of the
laptop. The Belkin Cooler Stand rests at a slight angle, propped up by a pull-out
stand at the back; this is obviously to allow the fan to take in the maximum
amount of air rather than from side vents that you see in other cooler designs.

This cooler made a noticeable difference to the running and idle
temperature of my CPU, it managed to shave off at least 3-4 degrees which I was
honestly impressed with. The downside is that this cooler was extremely noisy,
with it being comparable to how noisy the original model Xbox 360 was, but then
the fan was pretty powerful and did a great job at its main task, cooling my
laptop, so there is an obvious trade-off here.

As good as it was at cooling my system, I quickly returned the Belkin
Cooler back to the store I bought it from for a refund as I had a few issues
with it. Firstly, the cooler did not like running off my laptops USB port, as
it kept powering up and down constantly, so I had to power it from the mains
using a USB mains adaptor. I’m not really sure if this issue was due to the
product being faulty or whether it was down to the powerful fan and it being a
case of my laptop couldn’t or wouldn’t supply it with enough power. The second
issue I had, although intermittent, was with the fan itself, it was making a
horrible grating noise, presumably from the fan coming out of its centre
alignment and scraping the sides of its enclosure.

I was disappointed that this product was faulty and that I had to return
it as it did a great job of cooling my laptop. A 3-4 degree reduction in CPU
heat might not sound like a great deal, but for an external cooling device, and
one where the fan wasn’t positioned over my systems hotspots, is more than any
user could hope for. I would still recommend this cooler though, and if the fan
noise is not a big deal breaker for you, then its cooling effectiveness coupled
with its cheap price could be a sure fire winner for you.

The Second Cooler I bought

Belkin V2 Laptop Cooling Lounge

This cooling solution was slightly more expensive than the previous
Belkin cooling stand at around £20, but has turned out to be the most used and
reliable of the bunch thus far. Its not technically a cooling stand as such
that’s meant to sit on a desk, but is designed to be more of a lap table that
also features a fan cooling system. It is designed pretty much the same as the
Belkin Cooling Stand, it has the same shape and form factor, allowing your
system to sit on a bed of air, and it is perfectly sized for 15” laptops. The
V2 Laptop Cooling Lounge differs in that while the top of the device is
plastic, the underneath is cushioned to make it comfortable to rest on your
legs.

I wasn’t aware it was cushioned when I bought it, or that it was meant
as a lap desk rather than a proper cooling stand, but I had paid for it so I
wasn’t deterred and was willing to give it a go. It quickly became apparent
however that there was a significant flaw in the design of this Cooling Lounge,
one I find hard to understand how the designers failed to spot. At the back of
this device there is a vent system running along the length of the unit, and
this is supposedly where the centrally placed fan is meant to draw its air
from, or a certain portion of its air. The problem is, as it’s a lap desk,
there is a good chance that the fan will be obstructed underneath the Cooling
Lounge from resting on a persons lap, which means the fan is starved of air and
cant draw a sufficient amount of air through the vent at the back to make the
fan effective at cooling, which defeats the point in putting a fan in there in
the first place. So as you can imagine, using this resting on a desk to cool my
laptop would be pointless, but I found a way to get around this little problem
by resting the back of the device on a book to prop it up at an angle, and thus
allowing the fan to breath and become effective at cooling again.

The fan in this cooler is only half as powerful as the one in the
previous stand, but it did at least have a noticeable effect on the
temperature, but I only noticed a drop of a few degrees. It’s not anything
amazing, but during a heat wave such a small drop is more than welcomed, and I
guess the fact that you can use this as a comfortable lap desk is an added
bonus.

I have been using the Belkin V2 Laptop Cooling Lounge an awful lot, and
once I propped it up I was more than satisfied with the performance of it. But
although I like this cooler and haven’t experienced any problems with it, I
cant say that it is one that I would necessarily recommend as a cooling
solution to be placed on a desk, but I would recommend it if your after a lap
desk though.

The Final Cooler I Bought

Cooler Master NotePal U3

Firstly there are two versions of this cooler you should be aware of:
the U3 which I’m reviewing here and the previous iteration the U2, the only
difference between the two are the amount of fans they come with, the U2 having
two and the U3 having three (more on the U2 later.)

The U2/U3 NotePal design is a pure stroke of genius, there’s no two ways
about it, and it makes me wonder if there could ever be a better designed external
laptop cooler. The NotePal design is simple, minimalistic and for the most part
well thought out, and with the U3 being the most expensive of the three laptop
coolers that I have bought at £30, it is (thankfully) sturdy and really well
made as it feels weighty and expensive rather than a cheap piece of imported
plastic.

The idea behind this cooler is that it comes with three movable fans, so
the user can place each fan under a hotspot or vent on their specific laptop,
which in turn helps to cool the system better than other coolers on the market
that generally have centrally located fans. Each fan is held within a plastic
bracket, and it is the bracket that clips onto the underneath of the NotePal’s
aluminium mesh stand. All the fans can be removed from the brackets which is
handy, especially where this cooler is concerned, and all three are connected
to a fan speed controller that also doubles as the USB power plug. The U3s box
says it supports laptops from 17” up to 19” and it is certainly the largest of
the three coolers that I have bought, but I found it was fine for supporting my
15” laptop as the rubber pad at the bottom of the stand, coupled with my
computers rubber feet, easily stopped it from moving anywhere.

So you would think that with such a winning design that this cooler
would be without a doubt the best of the three and a sure fire winner, well
you’d be wrong. This cooler certainly ticks all the right boxes, but than
manages to mess everything up in a crucial element of its makeup that would
make it all work great. That element is the fans, which frankly are just really
crap, they might be whisper quiet, but what good is that when they are
significantly underpowered. I’m not sure if they are lacking the power they
need to run at their true full speed, or whether they are funning at full speed
and are just a rubbish choice of fans to use with this cooler. Adding a speed
adjuster to these fans was silly because at maximum speed the fans barely draw
enough air through them to move a thread of hair, and when set to minimum speed
they are utterly pointless, as you would be more likely to feel a gentle breeze
in space than from all three fans combined on this setting. Just how these poor
quality fans made it into this unit that has such a great design is beyond me,
as from the testing I did with this cooler it made absolutely no difference to
the temperature of my laptop with the fans positioned under two hotspots and a
vent. In fact my computer ran hotter during the heat wave so I quickly switched
back to the trusty Belkin Cooling Lounge, so as you can imagine, this cooler
was a real disappointment for me and the least used of all three.

As it stands I can’t really say I would recommend this cooler, purely on
the basis that the key components that are imperative to make it work (the
three fans) are useless, so no matter how good the design of this cooler is,
its pointless and a waste of money right out of the box. There is a saving
grace to this system though, but only if you are prepared to spend another
£20-£30, this systems potential can at least be salvaged. Because the fans can
detach from the plastic brackets that hold them onto the stand, you can buy
your own faster more powerful and effective fans rather cheaply off EBay or
Amazon and either try rewiring them up to the NotePals speed controller, or buy
a separate speed controller altogether. The other option is to try buying the
U2 version of this cooler as I have read in a few places that the fans in that
particular model are much better than the ones in the U3, but I have no way of
verifying this so buy at your own risk.